How A Cushy Job Can Be Your Ticket To Financial Freedom

This is a guest post from Steve who runs the popular blog MyWifeQuitHerJob.com where he writes about building wealth and entrepreneurship with an online store.

Are you bored with your job?

Are you tired of what you do on a day to day basis?

The fact is that there are many people who aren’t 100% happy with their day jobs and would like to transition to something new.

Picture this scenario. You’ve been working at XYZ firm for 10 years now. You know the ins and outs of your job and you do it very well. In fact, you are so efficient at what you do that you can do your job in your sleep. But the problem is that you don’t feel challenged. You feel like you are underutilized. You know you are capable of much more but you either feel too lazy, too comfortable or too scared to do anything about it.

Is it time to change jobs?

Now if you were to talk to any personal development guru or career advisor, they would tell you to quit your job and do something else to keep your mind challenged. Conventional wisdom says that if you feel stagnant or bored with anything that you do, you should make a change.

For example, a close of friend of mine changes jobs every 2 to 4 years to keep his mind fresh. In fact, often times he’ll even quit earlier if he feels that he is stagnating in any way.

Symptoms of stagnation include being bored at work, having to deal with too much office politics or the lack of learning. At his last company, he had this really cush 9 to 5 job where he was making decent money and had his weekends totally free.

But he ended up leaving because he felt that he had learned what he needed to know already. And if he stayed, he might have gotten pigeon-holed into doing the same thing over and over for years on end.

A Different Perspective On My Friend’s Situation

Now my friend’s actions sound completely logical. After all, why stay at a job if you are no longer learning? Why continue on if the job is no longer fun or if you are no longer growing? Unfortunately, the reality is that we all have our reasons for staying put at where we are.

What if your current job pays very well and you’d have to take a pay cut to go somewhere else? What if you have mouths to feed and a family to support and your current job is much more stable?

After all, if your current job pays decently well and you are so good at your job that you have a decent amount of free time to relax, why not put that free time towards your own financial independence?

If you switch jobs, you’ll have to work even harder at your new company in order to establish yourself. Why devote that extra time for the benefit of someone else when you can spend it on your own endeavors?

If you stop and think about it, the cycle of getting bored, switching jobs, working harder for someone else, becoming complacent and switching jobs again is an endless cycle because you are placing the control in someone else’s hands.

Challenge Yourself In A Different Way

So instead of challenging yourself with a new job or wasting your mind away at your current one, why not start a small business on the side? If you are already a master at what you do and you have extra free time, why not give entrepreneurship a shot?

In fact, having a cushy job is the best time to start a side business because there is very little monetary risk. Worse case scenario? If your small business idea doesn’t pan out, you still have a steady income to rely on.

Realistically speaking, you can easily start a small business on the side while still working at your cushy job by leveraging computers and the Internet.

By having a computer server run your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you can still hold a day job and let a computer do most of the work for you while you gradually build up your revenues.

The important thing to realize here is that by taking a step towards being your own boss, you are giving yourself a chance to be financially independent on your own terms.

Different Online Business Models

Of course, starting an online business or any business for that matter is not always easy, but one of the best things about the Internet is that the start up costs are so low. In addition, there are a variety of business models to choose from.

My Story For example, when my wife became pregnant with our first child, she wanted to quit her job in order to be a stay at home mom. So my wife and I decided to start an online store.

At the time, we both worked full time jobs which were our only sources of income and we invested about $630 dollars to get the ball rolling. While our initial intention was to make some extra money on the side, things took off and we ended up making over 100K in profit during our first year of business.

Today, our business continues to grow in the double and triple digits and my wife has quit her job.

Jeff Rose’s Story Now let’s say you aren’t willing to risk $630 for your business. Our very own Jeff Rose started his blog Good Financial Cents for probably under 10 bucks. But just look at his results today. He now pulls in 5 figures per month in earnings from his various web properties.

How does he earn his money? By producing great content and establishing himself as an authority in the financial sector, he has attracted quite an audience, an audience that listens to his recommendations and advice.

As a result when Jeff makes a product recommendation, people listen and he makes a small commission from the sale. Furthermore, his blog has also become an efficient sales funnel for his existing profession as a certified financial planner.

Mandy Rose’s Story Another great example is with Jeff’s wife, Mandy Rose. Mandy runs the popular blog House Of Rose where she displays her talents for home decor and fashion. I must admit, I have a love hate relationship with her blog.

On one hand, she does a great job with her site and she has a beautiful house. But on the other hand, Mandy’s blog makes my wife want to redecorate and remodel our house which is costing me lots of money. 🙂

Anyways in a relatively short period of time, Mandy’s blog has already reached a 4 figure income per month through advertising revenue and her traffic even rivals that of GoodFinancialCents.com even though Jeff’s blog has been around much longer.

Note from Jeff: I don’t mention much on this blog, but if you want to check out how my wife and I are making money online you can check out our joint blog Dollars and Roses.

What’s My Point?

If you get anything out of this post, it’s that you should always be looking to expand your horizons and to challenge yourself mentally. But you shouldn’t waste that brain power on looking for your next job. After all, your next job is never going to make you life changing money.

Your next job is never going to provide you with the freedom to challenge yourself in the long run.

Starting a business online can be done for under 10 bucks so there’s no reason not to give things a shot. It doesn’t matter whether you want to start an online store, a blog or a niche affiliate site website. By taking action, you are buying yourself a ticket towards financial freedom.

Bio: Steve runs the popular blog MyWifeQuitHerJob.com where he writes about building wealth and entrepreneurship with an online store.

Reader Comments

Thanks for sharing Steve, it’s such an inspiring story. I’d love to be able to follow in your footsteps I just don’t think I’d have the confidence.

For the initial transition from “9-5ing” to not, how did you smooth that financial period? Did you save up wages from the last couple of months of your work before you jumped into working from home just to get by?

Great post. I definitely agree that moving to a new career requires an investment of time and could impact your ability to start a side business and break away from working for others. One thing I evaluate now is whether or not moving to a new company will actually help me learn something or get experience that would help my side business grow and eventually turn it into a full-time job. Sometimes it can make sense to make the move.

Personally, I think I’ve gained a lot more practical knowledge in starting my various businesses compared to what I’ve learned on the job. At work, you have separate departments and specialized resources at your disposal. When you start a small business, you are on your own and you have to learn the nitty gritty.

Great message, Steve. My story is very similar – I wasn’t very challenged at my day job, and I started my business as a hobby to challenge myself. Over time, I learned to make money with it and it grew to the point that it replaced my day job income. I continued working a day job until I could no longer continue doing both.I quit my day job three years ago and haven’t looked back!

I’m in this situation now. I’ve been trying to work on my side business for a little over a year now with little result. It’s mostly because I don’t have enough time to dedicate to the craft, due to the demands in the rest of my life.

I’d say the hardest part is to find a niche that you are passionate about and the will to keep trying.

You make a very good point, that it’s always great if you can start your business and let it get off the ground without tremendous financial pressure in the early stages. Thanks for sharing an interesting point of view.

It is certainly a difficult situation to be if one does not like, no take that back, despise their job day in and day out. While what you are suggesting makes practical and logical sense, it may be difficult to implement if one wants to feel fulfilled and happy with their life. if the job is bearable and just not challenging enough, then your suggestions are excellent.

I loved reading this article – it reminded me of my beginnings. I worked for a company for 9 years. During the 8th year, after moving up in the ranks and having no further to go, I started my first website. It was nice to make money in addition to my salary – even nicer when I was laid off from the company. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to take advantage of their computer. The biggest hurdle I encountered, however, was working on my website during business hours. I felt like I was cheating the company. But then again, my work was “done”.

For our online store, we went through a bunch of ideas before we settled on selling linens. In the beginning, my wife and I both worked full time jobs and ran everything on the side. Early on, we sacrificed nights and weekends until the revenue started coming in.

Today, we have employees and my wife manages the business. Overall, she has a lot more free time than she ever did with her day job and has the flexibility of shuttling our kids around whenever it’s required.

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